Sheila Jackson Lee tries — but fails — to get data on government monitoring of Americans’ email

In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress authorized the federal government to read your email — without a warrant from a judge.

With civil liberties groups continuing to complain about potential privacy violations, a growing number of lawmakers are attempting to get information from Uncle Sam to let us know just how widespread the warrantless email snooping is going on.

The latest to try — and fail — is Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. The Houston Democrat this week asked the House Judiciary Committee to require the government to disclose an estimate of how many Americans’ communications were looked into without warrants. The amendment was shot down 11-20, and the bill extending the life of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (widely known as FISA) will now move to the House floor for a full vote.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, both Democrats, have been attempting to learn the exact number of emails that have been read by the NSA, but both say their requests have been met with stonewalling. NSA Inspector General Charles McCullough responded in a letter this week that giving even a rough estimate of the communications spied upon would “violate the privacy of U.S. persons.”

FISA was enacted in the in the late 1970s to regulate government surveillance, requiring the government to have a warrant to monitor domestic communications. In 2001, the Bush administration authorized the NSA to have a warrantless wiretapping program — a program which Congress ratified and expanded with the introduction of the FISA Amendments Act, or FAA, in 2008.

The legislation, which is up for renewal, allows the government to intercept Americans’ electronic communications without probable cause or a warrant as long as one of the parties is “reasonably believed to be located outside the United States,” said Kathleen Turner, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In a letter responding to the lawmakers’ request for an for an estimate of the number of people in the U.S. whose emails were read by the NSA, Turner said it was “not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority of the FAA.”

Sens. Wyden and Udall, who share Rep. Jackson Lee’s concerns, are attempting to slow the bill’s passage through Congress and stop the NSA’s use of warrantless “back door searches” against Americans. Sen. Wyden has put a “hold” on the Senate bill reauthorizing the FISA amendments to temporarily block their renewal.

“Before Congress votes to renew these authorities it is important to understand how they are working in practice. In particular, it is important for Congress to better understand how many people inside the United States have had their communications collected or reviewed under the authorities granted by the FISA Amendments Act,” said Wyden.

“I am concerned, of course, that if no one has even estimated how many Americans have had their communications collected under the FISA Amendments Act, then it is possible that this number could be quite large … I believe that there should be clear rules prohibiting the government from searching through these communications in an effort to find the phone calls or emails of a particular American, unless the government has obtained a warrant or emergency authorization permitting surveillance of that American.”